“The topic of polarization—its causes and consequences—has risen to the front of the study of American politics. Nolan McCarty and his coauthors have written the gold standard against which others will be judged. Their analysis of the consequences of polarization has caused me to rethink my belief that there are no real policy consequences to the elite polarization of American politics.”—David W. Brady, Bowen H. and Janice Arthur McCoy Professor of Political Science and Leadership Values, Stanford University

“In this impressive book, McCarty, Poole, and Rosenthal break through the wall political scientists have inadvertently constructed between American political institutions and American society. Their findings concerning the links between mounting inequality, immigration, and the rise of political polarization are sure to generate much discussion. Their fine scholarship will enlighten that discussion as well.”—Paul Pierson, Professor of Political Science, University of California, Berkeley

Product Description

Choice Outstanding Academic Title, 2007.

The idea of America as politically polarized—that there is an unbridgeable divide between right and left, red and blue states—has become a cliché. What commentators miss, however, is that increasing polarization in recent decades has been closely accompanied by fundamental social and economic changes—most notably, a parallel rise in income inequality. In Polarized America, Nolan McCarty, Keith Poole, and Howard Rosenthal examine the relationships of polarization, wealth disparity, immigration, and other forces, characterizing it as a dance of give and take and back and forth causality.

Using NOMINATE (a quantitative procedure that, like interest group ratings, scores politicians on the basis of their roll call voting records) to measure polarization in Congress and public opinion, census data and Federal Election Commission finance records to measure polarization among the public, the authors find that polarization and income inequality fell in tandem from 1913 to 1957 and rose together dramatically from 1977 on; they trace a parallel rise in immigration beginning in the 1970s. They show that Republicans have moved right, away from redistributive policies that would reduce income inequality. Immigration, meanwhile, has facilitated the move to the right: non-citizens, a larger share of the population and disproportionately poor, cannot vote; thus there is less political pressure from the bottom for redistribution than there is from the top against it.

In “the choreography of American politics” inequality feeds directly into political polarization, and polarization in turn creates policies that further increase inequality.

1.The Choreography of American Politics 2. Polarized Politicians 3. Income Polarization and the Electorate 4. Immigration, Income, and the Voter’s Incentive to Redistribute 5. Campaign Finance and Polarization 6. Polarization and Public Policy 7. Where Have you Gone, Mr. Sam [Rayburn]

About the Authors

Nolan McCarty is Professor of Politics and Public Affairs and Academic Dean of the Woodrow Wilson School of Public and International Affairs at Princeton University.

Keith T. Poole is Professor of Political Science at the University of California, San Diego.

Howard Rosenthal is Professor of Politics at New YorkUniversity and Visiting Scholar at the Russell Sage Foundation.